Winter and Hey Rosetta!

A winter break in Ottawa visiting friends and old haunts included tickets to see Hey Rosetta! with Stars at the NAC. We were really excited to see Hey Rosetta! especially after a music buying spree at Compact Music (fortunate exchange rates). Southam Hall was completely full - combination of 2 different bands' worth of music fans - and whilst Hey Rosetta received slightly muted appreciation initially, this soon changed to lots of whooping.

The set list (with help from Ottawa Citizen's review) included: Soft Offering..., Gold Teeth, What Arrows, Young Glass, Neon Beyond, Harriet, Kintsukuroi, Welcome as well as older songs Yer Spring, Red Heart. Excellent performance, though with a bit less banter than I might have expected - and it was good to hear new songs as well as familiar songs (since our holiday apartment didn't have a turntable we went to the show without having heard new album Second Sight).

Having never heard much of Stars before, we listened to a few tracks on Soundcloud and thought OK, we'll stay for their set. Bad decision. Three tracks in we were so bored! There was also something wrong with Stars' sound mix which didn't help.

More pictures also available at PhotogMusic, along with shots from The Peptides' recent show - which in the end we didn't manage to see....

Comments

Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .

Lang Lang: a little bit of stardust in Southam Hall

Lang Lang with Anita Pari Like many National Arts Centre regulars, the idea of a Lang Lang concert sounded fantastic... except that for me the Gala tickets are rather too expensive. As a result the turnout for today's masterclass with young artists Anita Pari (Ottawa), Alexander Malikov (Calgary), and Tina Chong (Banff) in Southam Hall was pretty good. No surprises that there were photographers and a TV camera all over the stage... so much so that during Lang's analysis of Malikov's rendition of Transcendental Étude No 8 'Wild Hunt' (Liszt), someone shouted at the cameraman to move. To my mind they seemed a little intrusive on the performances, but none of the artists seemed to take any notice. Lang Lang with Tina Chong Up first and for me the best performance was Anita Pari with the captivating Ballade No 1 by Chopin. In comparison, Malikov's performance did not have anywhere near as much projection. Final performer Tina Chong seemed

Guitar week: Gitarrissima and Sean Shibe

Almost at the Christmas break and hectic as ever! This last week was a two-concerts week (with a Christmas party in the middle) and it was guitars all round. First up, on 11th December, were Gitarrissima of Vienna at Skipton Music . The quintet (reduced to a quartet on Tuesday due to illness) performed A Christmas Celebration - seasonal music and a very jolly evening all round. The group perform on a mixture of concert guitars, an octave guitar and an acoustic bass guitar and the sound is remarkably rounded, not necessarily to be expected for reductions of orchestral pieces. Each set of pieces was introduced by a different member of the group. In a lot of ways, Gitarrissima reminded me of Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain with their clever arrangements of well-known pieces as well as musical excellence. The programme included excerpts (arranged by the group) of Bizet's Carmen , Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, all of which were performed very well but som

PrettyInScarlett

Search This Blog